The goal of making a relationship sustainable should not just be to stay, but rather, to find and cultivate the places in the relationship that are worth staying for. Re-imagining your commitment into a healthy curiosity about the mystery of the other person and allowing for the ebb and flow of intimacy that is a normal part of loving relationships. Here are a few thoughts to help you explore where to look for what can sustain your connections.

The other day I ran into an old friend while dropping off my son for a basketball practice. The last time we talked had been over a year ago, when she was celebrating her first anniversary to her second husband. After a tragic ending to her first marriage, she seemed radiant- they both did. Her boys were in transition but welcomed having a father again.

Now just a year later, she was in the final stages of divorce. I asked her what had happened- she said, it was a difficult transition for him- He wasn't happy not long after they were married, marriage and her ready made growing family had taken a toll on his music career, and they both decided it would be easier to split. I expressed my sorrow for her, but she replied, almost cheerfully, she was fine, better actually than when they were struggling to make it work.

I left that encounter with sadness and resolve. What could I learn from all the leaving that I see going on around me? When should relationships be ended? What amount of time and work constitutes enough? These are the questions that encircle many of my conversations with friends in various stages of leaving their relationships.

Two things come to mind when I talk to my friends about these endings- First, the quote I have hanging on my wall- "You never fail until you quit." This has been a primary premise in maintaining all of my relationships. If communication is the currency of relationships than walking away from the communication is certainly it's death. My husband and I went for years to counselors who taught us to speak to each other so we could hear one another. It is not a skill that most people have- especially across genders, each sex having entirely different ways of communicating and hearing. (For more info on this read "Why Men never remember and Women never forget" by M. Legato). Painful as it can often be, the work of learning to listen and speak lovingly is at its base the promise we make to stay.

The second thing that occurs to me, all the more so, at the onset of spring, as all of nature's little miracles show themselves, reinventing the cycle of birth and renewal is that sustaining love, and not only romantic love- requires acknowledging and accepting all of the "seasons" of a relationship as they come to you. It isn't reasonable to walk away from the winters in love- not the snuggly by the fire winter, but the barren emptiness of wondering how you could have said yes to this...Sustaining love is about learning to wait for the spring- trusting that it will come, sowing the seeds that will help the thaw to begin. Largely, this is a decision to give up the fantasy that relationships exist to make us happy- they have moments of deep and profound joy- like a jump in the lake on a hot summer day. But that is not what they are there for. They exist to teach us to love.

Learn more about Wendy at http://www.goodcleanlove.com/

Just in the last couple of weeks, I have spoken with several people who have expressed this sentiment. When I pressed the point and asked if they were to meet a compatible, kind and intelligent partner, would they truly feel like there wasn't room in their life to accommodate them. There was a brief pause, and then "I'm not sure" was as close as they would come to an opening. Our modern age has made it is easier to be passionate and maintain passion about a pet or a favorite sports team rather than a lover. What has happened to the game of love?

Memories of childhood games on late summer evenings remind me of what the game of love once meant to us. As kids we understood that it was the play that mattered. Winning and losing reflected their respective original meanings, which were "to desire" and "to be set free." Playing capture the flag in the dwindling light of the sky or a full neighborhood game of hide and seek was an apprenticeship in freedom. Pretending was rich with excitement, as we all shared in the wonder of not knowing the outcome. And yet we all knew that no victory was ever final, there was always tomorrow night.


Photo by: mohammadali

Lovers in the past shared one secret; they knew that it wasn't about winning or losing, it was the play that was essential. Playing allows us to experience freedom from duty and necessity. It is a primary condition of creativity and allows us the self-conscious delight of living out alternative realities. It is what makes us so deeply human.

Nowhere does this ring more true, than in our most intimate moments. Adding playfulness to sexual desire invites new friends into the bedroom: imagination and fantasy. Invite these allies to any passionate encounter with an openness to play, a willingness to pretend, and the freedom to live in the wonder of not knowing the outcome. Saying yes to this game of love keeps life fresh and while it offers no guarantees of long-term winning, it does promise to share glimpses of what we all desire most of the magical influence of love.

Rewarding our instinct to love creates the self-confidence to transform a private secret to a public force with the power to renew life and transmute human defects into loveable qualities. We are, after all, most loveable when we love. Playing this game doesn't guarantee a life without bruises or the happily ever after story that we all long for. It will, however teach you about all the many ways you can love, and love again.

Our goal is to provide you the inspiration and skills to recognize and cultivate the renewable resource that is love in your life. We look forward to your feedback and hope you will share this site with the people you care about.

Learn more about Wendy at http://www.goodcleanlove.com/

"The supreme happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved - loved for ourselves or rather, loved in spite of ourselves."   - Victor Hugo


Photo by: Amanda

Serious scientific inquiry has proven this quote to be true. By all measures of health and well being, the single most significant predictor of life time happiness and longevity is being involved in an intimate and loving relationship. It is true across seventeen cultures and in longitudinal studies of historic events that the people who fared the best even through traumas like war and the Great Depression were the people in stable partnerships and families.

Yet even with all this evidence of the power of loving bonds, we are caught in a culture that throws away relationships as though they were used up convenience foods. What is the deal? Are some people just lucky in love? Some of it may be luck. If you grew up as a wanted and beloved child of someone then the chances are good that a positive and secure romantic style is on your side. If you didn't have these advantages then chances are you fall into the avoidant or anxious romantic styles. All of these profiles or personality traits are linked to a child's ability to attach early in life. New research suggests that these early childhood patterns go a long way in explaining people's life long struggles with relationships.  

As the names suggest, avoidant and anxious romantic profiles can make it difficult for people to learn the very different skills of being able to both receive and give love.  If your childhood experiences didn't give you many positive memories and experiences of trust, it may be very difficult for you to approach your current relationships with any level of confidence that you will be loved.  Because our expectations and our beliefs about our relationships form the basis for how we communicate and behave in them, it becomes easier to see how many people continuously make bad decisions about the relationships they choose.   

And yet the story does not end there. Many neglected and not well loved children of the world have gone on to heal their belief systems and live out loving stories. I am among them.  It doesn't happen easily, but learning the skills of loving is possible for all of us. For many of us the key is learning to believe that we are worthy of love. Having compensated for so many years, we may be experts at the skills of loving others, but until we do the hard work of realizing "in spite of ourselves", we are lovable, we may never have a moment when our relationships feel secure. If there is any key to this work it is that love is a verb and seeing ourselves as loveable is an act that must be a part of every day.  

Learn more about Wendy at http://www.goodcleanlove.com/